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Month: March 2020

A Special message from His Holiness the Dalai Lama on Coronavirus Pandemic

“Dear brothers and sisters,“I am writing these words in response to the repeated requests from many people around the world. Today, we are passing through an exceptionally difficult time due to the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.

“In addition to this, further problems confront humanity such as extreme climate change. I would like to take this opportunity to express my admiration and gratitude to governments across the world, including the Government of India, for the steps they are taking to meet these challenges.

“Ancient Indian tradition describes the creation, abiding and destruction of worlds over time. Among the causes of such destruction are arms and disease, which seems to accord with what we are experiencing today. However, despite the enormous challenges we face, living beings, including humans, have shown a remarkable ability to survive.

“No matter how difficult the situation may be, we should employ science and human ingenuity with determination and courage to overcome the problems that confront us. Faced with threats to our health and well-being, it is natural to feel anxiety and fear. Nevertheless, I take great solace in the following wise advice to examine the problems before us: ‘If there is something to be done—do it, without any need to worry; if there’s nothing to be done, worrying about it further will not help.

“Everyone at present is doing their best to contain the spread of the coronavirus. I applaud the concerted efforts of nations to limit the threat. In particular, I appreciate the initiative India has taken with other SAARC countries to set up an emergency fund and an electronic platform to exchange information, knowledge and expertise to tackle the spread of Covid-19. This will serve as a model for dealing with such crises in future as well.

“I understand that as a result of the necessary lockdowns across the world, many people are facing tremendous hardship due to a loss of livelihood. For those with no stable income life is a daily struggle for survival. I earnestly appeal to all concerned to do everything possible to care for the vulnerable members of our communities.

“I offer special gratitude to the medical staff—doctors, nurses and other support personnel—who are working on the frontline to save lives at great personal risk. Their service is indeed compassion in action.

“With heartfelt feelings of concern for my brothers and sisters around the world who are passing through these difficult times, I pray for an early end to this pandemic so that your peace and happiness may soon be restored.

I’m currently working 40 hrs a week at a job that I mostly like, and do intend to stay with. I’ve only worked at this company for 4 years though. I do believe in their mission and stuff.

Now that Corona virus has ravages major cities’ medical systems, I have a moral question – Covid seems to be in large part a logistical problem. Supplies. Medical supplies, moving them around as fast as possible.

I ask you this, do I have a moral obligation to take two months leave from my current job, and apply for ANY position at a trucking/warehousing/supply chain company that moves medical supplies right now? India’s trucking workforce is young. They’re all 30’s, cowboy boot wearing cigarette smoking fast food eating types you’d expect (yes, that’s a gross generalization). But in a few weeks, probably sixty percent of these guys are gonna be laid up either at home or in the hospital and those supplies MUST MOVE.

I wonder what would happen if I pitched this idea to my current employer.

Apollo Hospitals Group on Monday announced ‘Project Stay I’, an initiative, with partnership with SBI, OYO, Hisdustan Unilever among others to creating isolation rooms in hotels with medical supervision for quarantine.

In a statement the the healthcare group said that “Project Stay I is an innovative initiative to strengthen the bulwark against COVID-19 by creating isolation rooms in hotels with light medical supervision for quarantine and creating a barrier to ensure people recover without spreading the virus, and or be supervised so they can move to medical care at the right time.”

It said that to ensure affordable, safe rooms overnight, clean environments, Apollo Hospitals has joined forces with Hindustan Unilever, State Bank of India, OYO Rooms, Lemon Tree, Ginger hotels and Zomato to launch a social impact initiative on isolation care called “Project Stay I” (Stay Isolated).

Prathap C. Reddy, Chairman, Apollo Group said, “I am happy that we are launching another important part of project Kavach where technology and innovation is helping create out of the box solution to help people. This is the future of India where we are responsive, innovative and inclusive“

Commenting on the development, Ritesh Agarwal, Founder and Group CEO, OYO Rooms said: “We want to work with state governments and private institutions to problem solve and assist in the fight against COVID-19. Our partnership with Apollo Hospitals has been developed to ensure we utilize capacity where possible to create highly sanitized pay per use quarantine facilities under the guidance and supervision of medical professionals. This is an unprecedented situation which requires all of us to find new ways to work together and rise to the occasion.”

US-based search engine giant Google has revealed that its subscription-based game service “Stadia” will add three more games for free next month.

“All three new Stadia Pro games are available for subscribers to claim April 1, no joke. Also, a friendly reminder that March 31 is the last day that the atmospheric first-person shooter Metro Exodus and the beautiful, energetic Thumper will be available to claim free on Stadia Pro,” the company said in a statement late Wednesday.

The three games are Serious Sam Collection, which includes all three entries in the first-person shooter series, remastered in HD; Spitlings, a multiplayer arcade game that’s temporarily exclusive to Stadia; and Stack on Stacks (On Stacks), another temporary Stadia exclusive, a 3D tower builder with a story mode for a single player as well as a multiplayer versus mode.

Google has said it will add more than 120 games to its subscription-based game service this year. More than 10 games in the first half of this year alone that will only be available on Stadia when they launch.

The company also plans to release support for 4K web gaming, improved assistant functionality for web gaming, additional Android phone support and wireless web gameplay via the Stadia controller.

There is this notions that if you have all the info available you can take control. Knowledge is power. Hogwash… if you are the nerdy kid you know that jocks can take your lunch any day.

If you are not familiar with Radio Laws, they are extremely strict. You are not allowed to sing even “Happy Birthday” to a friend let alone encrypt communication. Yeah… laws are ment to be broke.

In the 1980’s Radio People (independent non-comercial operators also known by the derogatory term “amateurs”) suffered an encrochement on their frequencies that piss them off realy bad. The comercial Radio/TV lobbied the government to reduce the free radio bandwidth.

The retaliation by the Amateurs was brutal. Military communications were decripted (analog at the time) and posted on BBS’s or newsletters (Wikileaks is softporn…realy). Terminals and computers were used to hack NASA, DoD, major banks etc…. TV and Radio Broadcasts were hijacked from time to time for a few minutes.

Botom line… the slavers got creamed. There was a reversion in the FCC alocations and things cooled off… but a decision to insert fingerprints in the future computers was made and those who did not comply got shut down. The communication manufacturing was moved to Finland untill those guys became extremely dangerous and now is in China (don’t bitch I know ALL the other locations but I had to make the story simple).

Do computer fingerprints work? Is there less computer crime?…

This shit benefits only some selected manufacturers who run by the motto: keep them stupid and pregnant.

I do remember reading some of the spy-planes reports on BBS’s. The TV ocasional TV interruptions too.

I would largely consider myself a more conservative anime fan. Death Parade, Cowboy Bebop, Baccano, Stein’s Gate- Like, I like “good” anime- or anime that the community perceives as good, typically.

So, I end up watching Shield Hero. I’ve read nothing but absolute trash reviews of it on facebook. More or less giving me the opinion that the female characters were SOA offensive, the story was utter crap, and it was largely irredeemable at best.

Yo, it’s a romp. Im surprised that not only does everyone seem to hate it here, but saying nice things about it seems actively discouraged.

Look, this isn’t Berserk- I am not saying that! Shit, this isn’t even the remake of Berserk, but sometimes everyone needs a fun little trashy candy show, and Shield Hero absolutely filled that void for me! I binged it in two days. I feel like whenever I see folks talk about it, there is this expectation that the show should absolutely change the Isekai genre, and extreme disappointment when it didn’t- but every episode, even the absolute nonsense episodes where the group is making money are fun as shit. The show experiences minimal snoozer moments, fight scenes don’t extent past where they need to.

I am glad of where the women on the show all ended up and how they grew, so acknowledging the weird slavery first few episodes as fucky and appreciating the dynamics as they grew was fine by me. I have heard some folks say they have no personalities outside their relationship with Naofumi, but Filo is a wonderful little shit, You get to watch Raphtalia grow from a scared former slave into a confident badass, and Malty is a pragmatic boss.

Additionally, Naofumi is fun to watch too! He isn’t drawn like a pre pubescent little boy with a waif personality like most self insert isekai protagonists, and it’s been hella fun to watch him go from a regular dude, to a real fucker, and find his way back to being a nice, normal guy.

Are there plot holes, character blemishes, and imperfections?

Absolutely! Like again, this is a light novel isekai adaptation- the genre is basically 90% crack candy.

Is it the best anime i’ve ever watched?

Not really- but ill be damned if I didn’t have a good ass time watching it. It seems like folks are super intent on hating it and i’m really surprised after watching for myself how not completely shitty it was.

I’m posting about it because had a listened to it from my friends, I wouldn’t have enjoyed a stupid, fun filled adventure- so I guess like, don’t always believe what you read.

I don’t want to be overly cynical, though I do tend to assume parents who do things like this want attention, I’m happy to give the mother the benefit of the doubt, and say she had no selfish intentions. Even so, I think this behaviour is very misguided, and I dread to think of the thousands of bullied children who will likely now have their tears put online in imitation. I genuinely find it odd there has been little warning that this sort of action could backfire.

A nine year old boy can’t consent to this sort of thing. I don’t know if he agreed for his mother to share the video, but even if he did, he’s too young to understand the lifelong impact this will have. I’m sure he’s enjoying all the kind words and attention from various celebrities right now, but it’s just a fifteen minutes of fame. I can only imagine the joy of the bullies in a few years time when they find this video- as they inevitably will.

This might make a wider rallying point against bullying, but the first duty of a parent is to protect their child, and I feel any parent who publicises their child’s distress has failed to do that.